Tender Skin  Chapter Three
by ObsessiveCompulsions
Summary: After the epicness on the Massive, it's time to slow down and get sucked into earth's gravity. We pull back a bit and watch Dib do his Dib things. And it somewhat answers the previous question of: what happened to Zim?


Back on earth, Zim was nowhere to be found in his house. Dib's spy monitors couldn't find a trace of him. The base looked perfectly untouched, just like it would any day of the week. Dib grew confused and wondered… just what happened to Zim?

"Zim? Zim! I know you're here… reveal yourself, you disgusting alien!" Dib shouted relentlessly into the darkness of the alleyway near his neighborhood.

"What are you doing?" Gaz asked slowly

"I'm trying… to find… Zim… he's been missing and… I need to- GAAAH!" Dib was speaking eccentrically as he hopped from trashcan to trashcan in the alley, looking for his "alien-friend." Unfortunately, all he managed to do was knock over a can and dump garbage on himself.

"Dib- you smell. Let's go home now." His scary sister looked even more sinister, suggestively threatening him with a glare.

"But Gaz- I need your help to find him! He's here somewhere… I can feel it!"

"Dib… that's just the rat in your shirt."

"Oh yes- wait… what?" Dib looked down at his chest, and saw a nasty rat pop out and crawl over his face and onto the ground.

"AAH! WHAT THE? Gaz! Why didn't you- never mind… we have a mission to accomplish- FIND… THE ALIEN."

"Dib, the only 'mission' we have is to go home, before I beat you relentlessly within an inch of your life." Gaz glared at Dib with an intense hate in her eyes.

"Uh… okay Gaz… I guess looking for Zim can wait. Let's go home… besides, it's almost time for Mysterious Mysteries."

Dib walked by Gaz and they continued on home, with Dib looking around constantly in the most paranoid way. Gaz would glance over at him occasionally, just to see what on earth he thought he was doing. Dib of course assumed he saw something 'suspicious' in the distance and shoved Gaz aside, to go pursue it.

"STOP! I KNOW IT'S YOU! GET BACK HERE!" Dib screamed loudly at whatever he saw down the sidewalk.

"What? I- AH!" the figure walking down the road was caught off-guard, but began to run for their life away from this spikey-haired maniac.

"Idiots." Gaz mumbled, and then proceeded to walk in another direction on her own.

The chase went on down several streets, with plenty of running, shouting, angry by-passers, destroyed property, and of course- no regard for where Dib was actually going.

"Stop… running… right now…" Dib spat out the words and coughed a bit. He was tired from having walked all over today, trying to find Zim.

"Then STOP chasing me!" The figure shouted from a few feet in front of him… the voice sounded familiar, but nothing like Zim.

"Wait… you're not Zim!" Dib shouted and pointed an over-dramatic finger at his poor victim of mistaken identity.

"Well… DUH." The buck-toothed boy of Dib's class retorted back, "I'm not a freak like him… or YOU for that matter, Dib!" The boy shouted and stormed off, mumbling.

"That was… odd." Dib said to himself softly.

Gaz walked by Dib and grabbed him by the ankle, then dragged him the rest of the way home.

Once Dib knew that his sister was well asleep, he turned on his computer. First thing he wanted to do since he got home, was re-check the spy footage.

"Alright cameras… what did I miss from earlier?" the lunatic spoke to himself or possibly his monitor softly, opening the program to view his 'Zim files'.

The camera footage showed a portion of Zim's home from a few weeks before, where it looked like Zim was cleaning the house very extensively. Then, another window showed footage from a week later than that, where Zim was fixing his Voot Cruiser. A third window popped up and displayed some dialogue of Zim speaking to his GIR unit about something Dib didn't think was very important the first time he looked at it. Now though, he paused the other videos and unmuted this one, just to hear what they were talking about.

"Gir, this is very important, so PLEASE pay attention." Zim barked at Gir from across his lab.

"Um... okay." Gir stopped playing with his piggy to listen to his master speak.

"Now Gir, listen to me, and think with your brain, OH-KAY?"

"YES, MY MASTER!" Gir shot up with a salute and glowed an obedient red.

"Good! I will be leaving for several days- maybe more- exploring this… 'Milky Way' and uncovering whether or not it and the moon are really made of dairy products. I need you to stay here and guard the base. Can you do that?"

"Umm… why don't you just use those… flying robot thingies?"

"Ha ha ha… silly Gir. Those were for MARS. And besides, this requires hands-on eh… research… yes research… to find out… uuh… well you know."

"I reeeaally don't." Gir piped half-wittedly.

"….YOU LIE!" Zim shouted and pointed objectively.

Dib shut that window and pushed himself back from the screen in triumph.

"Of course! The Milky Way and the Moon! Zim is so stupid… they're not made of dairy products…"

Dib quickly scanned over some screenshots from the other spy camera windows, and then shut down his computer. He retired for the night, and dreamed of the dream he always has, exposing that Zim is obviously… an alien.


End file.
